(Vol. iv., p. 423.)
The lady about whom FANNY inquires, was the wife of William Lord
Fitz-Warine, who died in 35 Edward III. (1361), as to whom see _Dugd.
Bar._ i. 447. The register of interments and sepulchral inscriptions in
the church of the Grey Friars, London, printed in the fifth volume of
_Collectanea Topogr. et Geneal._ (the entry is at p. 278.), which I
presume to be the authority for the statement in Knight's _London_, does
not afford further information as to this lady, who is reckoned amongst
the four queens said by Weever (following Stowe) to have been interred
in this church. Mr. J. G. Nichols, in his note to the entry referred to,
does not add any information about the lady Isabel.
There was a Sybil, who was daughter of William Montacute, Earl of
Salisbury and King of Man and Derby, one of the most distinguished
characters in the heroic age of Edward III. She married Edmund, the
younger of the two sons of Edmund Earl of Arundel, by Alice, sister and
heir of John, last Earl of Warren and Surrey, who died in 1347 (_Dugd.
Bar._ i. 82.). William Montacute was created Earl of Salisbury 16th
March, 1337, and died in 1343, and was entombed in the church of the
Friars Carmelites, London (_Weever_, 437.). He was connected with the
family of John Earl of Surrey, for it appears from a grant made by the
king in 11 Edward III. to William Earl of Salisbury, that he was
entitled in reversion to certain hereditaments then held by John de
Warren, Earl of Surrey, and Joan his wife (_Collect. Top. et Gen._ vii.
379.). The valiant Montacute, lord of Man, did not die without heirs
male, for his son William was his heir; otherwise we might have supposed
the dominion of the isle to have devolved on his daughter Sybil or
Isabel, who, surviving Edmund her husband, may have married the Lord
Fitz-Warine. Can evidence of such connexion be found? I have not met
with anything to connect his family with the lordship of the Isle of
Man, and am not aware that "Isabel Queen of Man" is mentioned in any
record save the sepulchral register of the Grey Friars. I wish some clue
could be found to a satisfactory answer.
The other branch of the question proposed by FANNY, viz., when did the
Isle of Man cease to be an independent kingdom? can be answered by a
short historical statement. So early as the reign of John, its
sovereigns rendered fealty and homage to the kings of England. Reginald,
styled King of Man, did homage to Henry III., as appears by the extract
given from the _Rot. Pat._ 3 Hen. III., by Selden. During a series of
years previously, the kings of Man, who seem to have held this isle
together with the Hebrides, had done homage to the kings of Norway, and
its bishops went to Drontheim for consecration. Magnus, last sovereign
of Man of the Norwegian dynasty, died in 1265. From that period the
shadowy crown of Man is seen from time to time resting on lords of
different races, and its descent is in many periods involved in great
obscurity. After the death of Magnus, the island was seized by Alexander
III. of Scotland. A daughter and heiress of Reginald sued for it against
John Baliol before Edward I. of England as lord paramount of Man (_Rot.
Parl._ 31 Edw. I.). In 35 Edw. I., we find Anthony Bek, the warlike
Bishop and Count Palatine of Durham, in possession of the isle; but the
king of England then claimed to resume it into his own hands, as of the
ancient right of the crown. Accordingly, from sundry records it appears
that Edw. II. and Edw. III. committed its custody to various persons,
and the latter king at length conferred his right to it upon William
Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, in consideration, probably, of that
valiant Earl having by his arms regained the island from the Scots, who
had resumed possession, and of the circumstance that his grandmother,
the wife of Simon de Montacute, was sister and heiress of one of the
former kings of Man, and related to the lady who had claimed it as her
inheritance on the death of Magnus. The son and heir of the grantee sold
the isle to Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire, about 16 Rich. II. In the time of
Hen. IV., Sir William Scrope forfeited his possessions (_Dugd. Bar._ ii.
250.); and the isle again came to the crown. It was granted to Percy,
Earl of Northumberland, by the service of bearing the Lancaster sword on
the left shoulder of the king on the day of coronation; was forfeited by
Percy; and was thereupon granted by the same king to Sir John Stanley
and his heirs, under which grant the Earls of Derby succeeded during
many years. It was a subject of a grant to the Stanleys by Queen
Elizabeth, and of an act of parliament in the reign of James I., under
which the isle became vested in the Duchess Dowager of Athol, as heir of
the body of James, seventh Earl of Derby, and ultimately became vested
by purchase in the crown. It may be said that during the time of
authentic history, the Isle of Man was not an independent kingdom, until
the regality was granted by the crown, as already mentioned.